Journal Revolution

Tomatoes, Peas, and How to use the Kindle App

I used to hate tomatoes, peas, and I thought I would hate reading books that were not made of paper and glue. It tuns out I am addicted to Caprese salad, I love peas so much I am growing my own, and I do not know how I lived before the Kindle app existed. I do not have a Kindle and you do not need one to read Kindle books. Right now our Nana is laughing on a cloud somewhere saying TOLD YOU SO about the tomato and pea thing, but I suspect she would not know how to use the Kindle app and I would have to show her. In case you do not know, I am going to show you. You could be totally missing out on something great!
The Kindle app is FREE for your phone, computer, and tablet. Go to the amazon site and download it for your computer (Windows or Mac). If you have an iPhone,iPod Touch, or iPad, click the APP STORE icon on your phone or iPad and search for KINDLE. On Android, go to Marketplace and do that. However Blackberry users get apps, go there and get it, Windows Phone 7 users can use it, too. Once again, the Kindle app is FREE for all those devices.  If you do not have a smart phone, an iPad, or an Android Tablet, and you don't want to download the Kindle Reader software onto you computer (I don't know why you would not want to), you can still read books in the Kindle Cloud at Amazon. There are so many options!

Once you have the Kindle app/Reader wherever you want it, go shopping at Amazon. When you buy a Kindle book, it asks you if you would like to read it on your phone,iPad, tablet, computer or in the Cloud. It magically knows what you have.  Holy cow, there are so many FREE books! And, the Kindle version of many new books just released are cheaper than the hard-back or printed versions. You can buy a book and buy gasoline this week! If your friends are using the Kindle you can lend books to each other just like with printed books. You can have all your books you love on your phone or tablet with you while you wait at the DMV, are on an airplane, or at Starbucks yet you don't have to carry anything heavy. It's so convenient, especially when you want a recipe from a favorite cookbook. Of course, we all love books on our bookshelves and there's no reason to not have that. Nothing can replace the feel of a book in our hands and the sound a page makes when you are excitedly flipping it. This is just an alternative. We can have both. It's just like iTunes but instead of music it is books. And it's not iTunes, which is really good.

*Our new book YOU RULE is availabe for the Kindle and Kindle Apps you now know how to use on everything,

Our new book is here

Our new book, YOU RULE, is available for the Kindle (and Kindle apps which are FREE!) at Amazon and at Barnes & Noble for Nook users (the NOOK app is free, too!). It will be available  in print as well, shortly. We love that books no longer really look like books. You can read a book on your phone (or iPad or tablet). That is just so cool. The possibilities for sharing inspiration are endless and we are no longer bound by anything, literally. Like musicians who primarily put their new music on iTunes or Amazon for immediate download, from here forward, we intend to do that with our books via Kindle and Nook.
While book formats and technology have changed, our philosophy has not. We still believe in using our lives to encourage people to use their lives and experiences as their main art supply. Your art should be all about YOU and we can't wait to see what you create with your rules.

When we first came out with Visual Chronicles (and later Journal Revolution), there were no other journaling books like it. We are so happy to see that  visual journaling has evolved and is so accessible to people. It's no longer thought of as that thing emo teenagers do! And by emo teenagers, I mean adults who grew up listening to The Cure and Depeche Mode and dyeing their bangs purple. Art Journaling is for everyone!  We have already done step-by-step guides and now we want to inspire people to use their imaginations a bit differently. We want you to use your imagination. And your humor. And your life lessons. We want you to be mindful. Art does not have to be a big huge serious thing. It can be fun and lighthearted. And you can find inspiration in making serious things funny, or cute, or dark and serious. It's freeing. It's liberating. The fun of art is expressing whatever you want, however you want. Somehow over the years art journaling has become more about the art supplies used and less about the user. Our focus has always been about the supply you carry with you at all times- your life. YOU ARE ART.

Over the next couple weeks we will share journal pages created by a variety of artists who were inspired by You Rule. We hope you will share your journal pages with us, too!

*The NOOK version of YOU RULE is available for a limited time only.

Just some stuff- Music, Hunger Games, Art, The Gimp Sisters

1. I am totally in love with the CD Into The Wild by LP. If you do not know who LP is, she sings the somebody left the gate Ohhhhh-pennnn song in the Citibank commercial. All the songs on the CD are good and perfect for treadmilling. I have had it on repeat since I got it. *Not to be confused with Into The Wild by Eddie Vedder which I also have in rotation, still.

2. I have now read all of the Hunger Games books. I loved them. Well, I liked #3 less than #1 and #2, but I still loved the whole series.  I'm still going to be the lone hold out on the Twilight series, though. If you saw The Hunger Games movie and have not seen Winter's Bone, rent it! Katniss is really good in it.

3. My love for ebay is still going strong! I have some more 99cent auctions going on this weekend here and some new abstracts in my etsy shop here. I still have no reservers on my art auctions but have added a "buy it now" option for those who asked. Bidding is always an option. I am always thrilled for people who get a good deal because I love ebay. So go bid and have fun.

4. We heard from the powers that be that the Kindle and Nook versions of You Rule may be available by Mother's Day. WooHoo!

5. Speaking of Mother's Day, Karen's big ass neck operation is on May 14th so that would be a good day to hope Mercury doesn't suddenly go into retrograde for no reason. We don't want to be the The Gimp Sisters Formerly Known As Sisters On Sojourn.

 

People, you need a peephole

Last Friday, and odd dog with a dental problem appeared at our back door. His legs also stuck out every which way, like a badly drawn cartoon.  If I didn't take pictures of the things that go on in my daily life, I am sure I would not believe half the stuff that happens. I started going door-to-door asking my neighbors if they were missing their sweet dog. The weird train kept on going. I noticed some interesting things:

~The majority of my neighbors do not have peepholes in their front doors. PEOPLE, you need a peephole! That is so dangerous. Do not answer your door without looking at who is knocking. How do you pretend you are not home if at first you come to the window and look out at who is knocking? The person at the door can see you.
~Not only did nobody have a peephole, they also either had no window coverings on their huge front windows or had sheers. I can tell you everything everyone had in their great rooms, including how many kids they have based on the family photos on their mantels. Does nobody remember Polly Klaas, Elizabeth Smart, or JonBenet Ramsey? Come on you guys, go to Target and get some curtains for the windows that face the street.
~Most men who are home at 10:30 AM answered their doors half-dressed. I can safely say my husband is the hottest in the 'hood. Put your clothes on before answering the door, it's not that difficult to say hang on a second and grab a shirt. I am scarred for life. Bras for men might be a good thing afterall.
~Despite sharing a fence with us for 13 years -and despite our house being bright yellow with a red door in a sea of beige -and despite me always being outside, three of the neighbors that share a fence with us had never seen me before and were totally baffled by my existence. One of those neighbors being the ball tossers. The other being the house where I think the mom is a blogger and her desk window faces our kitchen. The other house had a cute guy in it who was dressed so I am going to let him off the hook. He actually helped me try to find the dog's owner. Anyway, the fact that nobody has noticed me for 13 years is pretty damn good. I actually AM invisible! Well, it's weird, but it's good. If people can't see you, they can't complain.I'm not going to worry about my music being too loud.
~Everyone has stacks of magazines and mail on their counter and everyone has multiple remotes for their TV.

You can learn a lot about people by standing in their doorway for a minutes...a good reason to never answer your door when a stranger comes knocking, unless you see them holding your dog.

What not to ask an author

The worst question you can ask an author is about what they are working on next. It's not that creative people don't want to talk about what they are working on, but a huge chunk of creative work is often not what you are holding in your hands. The secret that artists, writers, and musicians are holding on to when you ask what we are all working on is that we are thinking (and living). It's not a romantic answer, so we just say some rehearsed thing and change the subject until we are ready to discuss our next thing. Our next thing involves a lot of staring into space and figuring shit out. Nobody wants to hear that, but that is what we do. Our heads are full of ideas and it takes planning -and fiddling- and futzing around to get those ideas out in a way that works. That is the fun of it! Like every great story, there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. The figuring shit out part is the middle and often the part people want to fast-forward through to get to the blockbuster ending.
I like the middle best, just like a custard filled doughnut.

The glorious sound of silence

Today we are FEELIN' GROOVY about:
~The sound of silence. The barking dogs neighbor has a new job, and is now home at night! Ahhhhh! Sweet relief! We'd forgotten how nice it is to sit in our yard, have the windows open, and hear ourselves think.
~A new orange tree in our backyard.
~American Idiot the musical. If you like Green Day, see it. Do not take your young kids to see this even if they sing along with you in the car to the edited versions of the songs. There are sex scenes, drug scenes, and it's not appropiate for kids. You have been warned.
~Bumble & Bumble Color Minded Styling Balm. It's one of the only B&B products I like and one of the only ones that doesn't make our hair all staticy. It smells good, too.
~Almondictive Bits from My Boyfriend Joe. Caramelized almonds in chocolate. You'll eat the whole tub, hide them from yourself.
~Emily has chosen the Vanderbilt hoodie!

Our Bêtes Noires:
~Late the other night, some strange animal attacked a bird nest in our tree. We've tried to put it back in the tree for the bird who is looking for her home, but we just can't get it to stay in. We were surprised to see the nest is made mostly of fur from the barking dog! Cool and weird.
~Our TV and our A/C are broken. I have ordered repair parts for the tv and the a/c repair guy is coming on Thursday. Who will fix what first? My money is on us fixing the tv.
~AAA insurance sales people. They are worse than debt collectors. I went to register my car and they offered to give me an insurance quote. Just to see, I said ok. Their  homeowners insurance was more expensive than what we have. Now they will not stop calling me. When I emailed the representative back and told her that since their rates were HIGHER than what we have already and I would stay with our original carrier, she called MY HUSBAND. Well you for sure will not be getting my business now, Miss 1955!
~Cashiers keep telling me how sick they are with the stomach flu while scanning all my groceries.  How long do germs stay on cereal boxes?

Grooving on our first ever blog post

I've been getting emails lately about why we haven't been blogging our lists of things we are grooving on and things that are bugging us. I have no reason other than I was doing it for so long that I just felt like taking a break from it. Though, in our daily conversations with each other we always say the good and the bad of our day (or of the hour depending on the day). We are huge list makers, as you know. We have a collection of our lists from when we were kids and they are prized possessions (and really funny). Last night I was wondering how long exactly we'd been doing the list blog posts so I took a look through our archives. We've been blogging for NINE YEARS! This is our first blog post from September 30, 2003:

We are glad you could join us as we journey through this life.
Today we are FEELIN' GROOVY about:

~ECCO shoes
~Sparkling H20 Paints
~Cheddar Cheese on Low Sodium Triscuits
~Air Condtitioning
~RAID
~Diet Vanilla Coke
~Friends who get all our jokes

Our Bêtes Noires:

~Ants
~Bad Internet Connections
~Bad Cell Phone Service (each call begins and ends with HELLO? HELLO?)
~Flavorless chocolate that we bought when we REALLY needed chocolate but couldn't find a See's Candies anywhere.
~People who call talk radio shows and begin with, "Like I was telling your screener,....."

 

Remember Diet Vanilla Coke?! Oh how we loved it. Of course it was discontinued shortly after that blog post. The Low-Sodium Triscuits are now called "Hint of Salt" Triscuits and we still eat those. As for bad cell phone service, who talks on their phone anymore? We text each other all day with our iPhones that never leave our hands. My how things have changed and yet how they have stayed exactly the same. My exterminator was just here yesterday spraying for ants...and spiders. Our good and bad list will be returning soon.

*One thing I have grooved on for over a decade is ebay! My Lake Houses abstract landscape is one of my 99cent auctions this week.

You Rule and life the next few weeks

We are doing some serious mixing of life and art around here the next few weeks. Our new art journaling book YOU RULE: The Art Of Taking Charge will be out in early May and we are so excited about it! We've loved working on it and can't wait to see how it inspires people.
Around the time YOU RULE comes out, our dear Emily will have made her decision about where to go to college and that will be cause for celebration. And, I suspect, it will be cause for us to learn some new airline schedules to the east coast.
Then, once the college decision has been made, Dearest Beloved Seester Karen is going to have some major surgery. This will be the cause of me sitting in a hospital cafeteria eating macaroni and cheese for days while rocking back and forth. My tweets those days should be really interesting! I will spend the remainder of May and the beginning of June encouraging everyone to RULE their journals from Karen's side while I spoon feed her soft frosting and do her hair and makeup. As if I would be the type of nurse who just feeds apple sauce. Seriously, who craves applesauce while on pain killers and immobile? NOBODY!
By June, Karen will be up and moving around and we will be sitting next to each other beaming with pride and crying our eyes out as Emily graduates from high school. I hope there will be some of that soft frosting left over.

I'm will be more forthcoming on details as things happen. I think you are all aware of the Woods Dinino Curse. Mercury may not be in retrograde right now but that damn curse is active all year round! I don't want to jinx us. I'm saving all my talking about things to the point of irritation until they are actually happening.

*I have some 99 cent art auctions at ebay this week with no reserves. Go here to look or bid.

The eye thing explained

Last week, I went to get my hair cut. When I came out of the salon, it felt like a bee or something stung me in the eye. Or maybe a piece of hair from my cut got in my eye and was stuck. I figured since it was me, it was a bug with a vendetta. I drove home kind of squinty and then spent the next few hours squirting every type of solution my husband had in his medicine cabinet for his contact lenses in my eye trying to get whatever it was out. My eye was continuing to swell, turn red, and I could not keep it open. Any amount of light was making it worse. So naturally, I took some photos and texted them to my sister in a time zone 3 hours away. If you are not sure why I did this, this is how Jewish people diagnose illnesses. We consult our family members first, take a poll on what disease we think we are dying of, then decide when we should go to a doctor. We decided I should go to the eye doctor  in the morning if whatever was stuck in my eye did not come out by then. Also, we relived every moment from our childhood hoping the tears would flush out the intruder. No such luck.
The first optometrist I went to was lovely. He  saw me right away and did some gross tests with dye in my eye and told me the problem was not caused by a bee, spider, or a hair cut. Oh the luck! He determined my problem was too serious for him to treat and I'd need to see a specialist right away. While he was calling his buddy the specialist, I was tweeting that I was about to be blind and was hoping they'd give me a cool eye patch. I went to see the specialist, though I don't have any memory of how I actually drove there with one eye covered and full of vegetable dye. But, whatever. What a do remember is there is a cool lobby at the specialist's office that I intend to sneak in for a photo shoot next week. I hope there are no security cameras. After more gross and painful tests, the specialist who has no sense of humor at all tells me I have Iritis, a condition that affects the iris where the iris becomes inflammed. It's controlled with steroids, dilating drops, and DARK GLASSES. What? No eye patch? The dilating drops definitely help the excruciating pain, but it's making it very hard for me to see clearly anything not right in front of me. If I am not wearing sunglasses most of the time, it gives me a really weird headache. Having one eye dilated and the other not, is freaky looking, too. On the bright side, I love sunglasses! On the down side, now I can't make jokes about Bono always wearing sunglasses inside. Poor Bono! Well, not really poor-poor. I don't think he got his extra pair of glasses at Target like I did.

 

A visit from the Wizard

This morning I was sitting in our garden soaking up the sun, planning a new herb garden, and enjoying some matzo with cookie butter* when a strange thing caught my eye. There at the end of the yard on our fence, in vines, was a message from The Wizard. The Wizard tags fences in organic graffiti? What is going on?! This was not there a few days ago when I was sitting outside playing Draw Something instead of working. Are lollipop flowers and poptart bricks going to appear next? Maybe a roll of edible wallpaper will suddenly appear for our loft. This is way better than finding Mother Mary images in vines on your fence.
Wait, could it be that Ignacio, our beloved gardener is really THE WIZARD? What does it all mean?
Things around here just never stop being weird. I love it.

*If you haven't gotten the Cookie Butter from Trader Joe's, get it! Stock up, it sells out fast and it is addictive. It's cinnamony, gingerbready, sweet deliciousness.